“Engaging Children Using Colour”

By Adam Ewart, Founder of Karacha.com

The importance of introducing colour to the classroom should not be underestimated in terms of the benefits it can bring to children’s musical development

Introducing colour to the classroom environment has never been so important following research revealing that young children of primary school age have very positive reactions to bright colours - stimulating them and leading to increased productivity, focus and concentration.

The importance of colour to the classroom environment is also highlighted by education experts calling for the replacement of blackboards with greenboards to make them less stark and more interactive. Some teachers also use colour to divide classrooms into different zones for different activities, for example a calm blue area for reading, and an orange area for creative work.  Another great way of making a classroom more colourful is through music lessons and the use of brightly coloured instruments and percussion toys.

The importance of music

Children have an innate love for music and it is deep-rooted in our everyday culture, experiences with music begin with nursery rhymes and lullabies as very young children and can last a lifetime. This only highlights how important it is to encourage music in key stage 1 not only as an enjoyable and fun activity but to support emotional development and intelligence.

Choosing the right colour

Yellow and blue are both a recommended choice of colour scheme for children, with yellow promoting optimism and blue creating a calming effect that helps the mind to focus and improves the memory. Orange, bright purple and violet are also popular colour choices as they stimulate creativity in young children.

The importance of colour with regards to children is highlighted by the use of colour therapy to correct bad behaviour, calm hyperactive children and promote relaxation in upset or restless children. Numerous psychological studies have been undertaken in an effort to determine the effects of colour in the classroom including studies where colour overlays were placed over text to measure improvements in reading ability.

A study carried out by Perkins and Will entitled ‘The Impact of Colour on Learning’ found that different colours were more beneficial depending on the age of children. The study found that preschool and primary school children were more responsive to a warm, bright colour scheme which complimented the childrens’ natural extroverted nature. Whereas cooler colours were recommended for secondary school age students’ classrooms due to their ability to focus concentration.

Colour in the classroom

The latest way for teachers to not only introduce colour to the classroom but to actually employ it as a tool for encouraging learning, is the introduction of brightly coloured musical instruments to the market. Musical instruments have soared in popularity in recent months due to the availability of brightly coloured instruments to the amateur arena with, in some cases, the coloured varieties outselling traditional ones by as much as 15 to 1.

Coloured musical instruments are an innovative way for teachers and parents alike to encourage reluctant children to engage with music. The benefits on the development of children exposed to music from a young age are untold, especially in those that actively engage with music by learning an instrument on a regular basis.

This can have inconceivable effects on a child’s reading age, IQ level and even brain development. The process of learning an instrument can also improve hand-eye coordination, perseverance, patience, concentration and self confidence built through the encouragement of a teacher and enthusiasm of a proud parent.

Four year-old Lauren Douglas’ Mother from Bangor has noticed a dramatic improvement in her Daughter’s concentration levels since she began playing a bright pink violin four months ago: “Lauren started playing the violin a few months ago and when she first picked it up she could only manage ten or fifteen minutes before her focus began to wander. She is now managing to concentrate fully for 30 minutes without interruptions.”

Introducing colour to the classroom needn’t be expensive with a wide range of good value, quality instruments now available to schools including brightly coloured violins, saxophones and recorders.

The Perkins and Will study also reported that the benefits of a colourful environment have not only been recognised in schools. Businesses have also credited the use of colour with a reduction in employee absenteeism, increased productivity and improved quality of work.

Conclusion

Teachers are always looking for ways to improve the concentration levels of their pupils and the effects of music on not only concentration but patience and self-confidence can be impressive and immediate. There are a wide range of percussion and musical instruments now on the market so kitting out your classroom doesn’t need to cost the earth either and who knows – you could be harbouring the next generation of Vanessa Maes and Courtney Pines!

Key Points

• Children have very positive reactions to bright colours – leading to increased productivity, focus and concentration.
• Children have an innate love for music which should be encouraged through key stage 1 to support emotional development and intelligence
• Choose the right colour – blue has calming effects whilst purple and orange stimulate creativity.
• Brightly coloured musical instruments are designed to help teachers engage children with music and help encourage them to begin learning to play an instrument

Lesson ideas

Find The Sound

This activity will reinforce listening skills and help children to recognize the specific sounds of different instruments.

Place a chair in the centre of the room, select a student to sit on the chair and blindfold them. Then instruct another student to choose a musical instrument and stand at one side of the room playing the instrument.

Then ask the blindfolded student to stand up and walk towards the sound, once they have found it they must then name the instrument that is being played. The blindfold can then be removed and the student asked to select the next child to be blindfolded.

Sunflowers and Daisies

Through this lesson children will learn to understand that pitch is the tone of a sound and be able to identify high and low pitch sounds.

In a space, play a game of ‘Sunflowers’ and ‘Daisies’. Children move around the room whilst a xylophone is played in the background. If a high note is played children stretch up like sunflowers as high as they can, when a low note is played, they shrink down to the floor as low as they can like a daisy.

By varying the length of the change children can begin to recognise the change in pitch – it’s important to the phrases ‘high pitch’ and ‘low pitch’ as much as possible.

Next, instruct the children to respond to the pitch with hand signals  - if the high pitch is played they should raise their hand upwards and for the low pitch downwards. A middle pitch can then be introduced with the children pointing their hand out in front of them.

For the final part of the lesson divide the class into small groups and ask them to create a list of everyday sounds they can think of which are high pitched and low pitched. Then encourage them to compare their ideas with other groups. For homework ask them to listen out for high and low pitched sounds at home such as the kettle whistling or the doorbell, write them down and bring the list to the next lesson.

Instrument Sounds

This activity will enable pupils to learn to choose appropriate instrumental timbres to match sound sources. They will respond to musical signals and control their instruments and be able to identify a number of different ways to play an instrument.

Pupils sit in circle. A variety of classroom instruments are placed in the centre. Pupils take it in turn to choose an instrument, name it, make a noise with it and pass it to the next child who has to try to make a different noise with the instrument. This continues until all possible timbres are produced. The instrument is then placed outside the circle and the process starts again. Continue until all instruments have been used.